Burgled - need advice on dealing with insurance

[Peregrane]

Our house got burgled in broad daylight, thankfully nobody was in. Plenty of signs of forced entry - the door itself was destroyed after they couldn't budge the locks - so the insurance will pay, in principle.

However, the biggest loss is that they took all my jewellery, which was mostly inherited from family (and therefore carrying a lot of sentimental value :( ). I did not have the sense to photograph them beforehand, so all I could produce is a handwritten list with my own drawings. As they were handed on by my now dead grandmother, great-grandmother, uncle etc, who themselves lived through war and other upheavals, there is no hope of producing proof of purchase either.

Is there anything I can do to make a claim towards insurance for all this, even if that cannot replace the sentimental value? How could I go about that? I don't even know how to report the value of what was stolen. Should I try to find and pay a goldsmith to produce some realistic estimates?

Thanks in advance for any helpful ideas!

Do you have photos of you wearing the jewellery? We're the items listed in the wills and valued at this point?
These would be a good start to getting valuations, were the items individually listed on the insurance?
You do not have to accept vouchers from the insurance company, the ombudsman has ruled on this that this is unfair in particular where antique jewellery is concerned as you can not replace it with something from goldsmiths.
I did have a big value jewellery claim several years ago, I was under insured and had to fight for a cheque. All my items are individually listed with written descriptions to back up the valuations.

@Lonecatwithkitten, thank you for replying and for your ideas!
Unfortunately they were neither listed individually in wills (they came from ancestors with little education who lived through war in unstable countries where people saved in the form of jewellery as the least likely thing to lose value/be confiscated...) nor on the insurance... I also thought of hunting for personal photos with me wearing them but I only really wore them to work and don't tend to get photographed in the office! I might find one or two on Christmas photos.

You were clearly smarter about this than I was, but it's too late now to change what I hadn't done...

I’m afraid op that there’s l proof you had them
More importantly you didn’t individually specify them on to it policy so the maximum limit will be very low

OP I suggest you call the insurance company and let them know. We were in a very similar situation recently, three items of jewellery were stolen that we had no proof of purchase and no photographs, and they were not listed on the policy.

The insurance company still paid out for them, we described the jewellery and sent a photograph of a similar item they valued two of the the items at £1300 each and they paid us £1000 each (as they limited the claim to the individual item limit). Those jewellery items and some cash were the only things that were stolen, even though iPads, car keys and other electronics and smaller jewellery were left out in plain sight.
The insurance company also paid us for the cash currency that was stolen (we had to show the recent withdrawal as proof), up to the cash limit we had on the policy.
They also paid the bill for the forced entry damage (window replacement).

Good luck.